Donald Trump claims migrants from Haiti seeking asylum spreading AIDS in US

Former US President Donald Trump on Thursday, 7 October suggested without evidence that thousands of Haitian migrants who are seeking asylum in America are “probably” afflicted with AIDS. In a televised phone call interview with Fox News, when Trump was questioned on COVID-19 testing protocols for refugees, he made several unfounded claims about immigrants and even spoke of a conspiracy by other nations against the United States. 

The ex-US President said, “We have hundreds of thousands of people flowing in from Haiti. Haiti has a tremendous AIDS problem. AIDS is a step beyond. AIDS is a real bad problem.”

“So hundreds of thousands of people are coming into our country and if you look at the stats and you look at the numbers, if you look at just – take a look at what’s happening in Haiti, a tremendous problem with AIDS,” Trump said, adding “Many of those people will probably have AIDS and they’re coming into our country and we don’t do anything about it. We let everybody come in. Sean (Fox News interviewee), it’s like a death wish. It’s like a death wish for our country.”

'Roughest prisoners are being dumped into US'

Further, Trump went on to say that dozens of countries are “emptying out their prison” by purposely sending newly-released prisoners to America. He claimed that around 50 nations are emptying out their prisons into the US. Trump also added that some of the toughest people on the Earth are being dumped into the US because they don’t want them. 

“They don’t want to take care of them for the next 40 years. So these people that are the roughest prisoners there are anywhere are being dumped into the United States for us to take care of. What are they doing? They’re destroying our country,” Trump said. 

Meanwhile, this is not the first time Trump has made and anti-refugee remarks. Back in 2017, the New York Times had quoted the former US President saying that around 15,000 Haitians sent by the nation’s government to the US “all had AIDS”. However, back then, the White House had denied the claim and said that Trump did not make any such remark. The following year, the Washington Post reported that Trump wanted immigrants from countries like Norway, instead of “sh**hole countries” when asked about immigrants from Haiti, El Salvador, and African nations as part of a bipartisan immigration bill. 

(Image: AP)